Which LocalSMTP tier fits your lead-generation work?

The number you compare across tiers is mailboxes, not contacts. LocalSMTP sells standard SMTP and IMAP mailboxes you can sign into, plus browser webmail, warm-up and authentication checks. Nothing in that list supplies names, addresses or sources, so the mailbox count tells you how many separate sending identities you can run for client work.

Your client asks where a row came from. A mailbox answers a different question: whether the message left a domain you control and passed the checks set up at the start. Keep those two threads apart in your own records, because a clean sending setup does not make an address verified, and a verified address does not send itself.

Count the identities you actually need before comparing. One contractor writing on behalf of three clients may want three mailboxes with separate signatures and reply handling. That planning decides whether you sit at the Starter level or move up, and it is the only figure the tiers are built around.

Starter gives you five mailboxes. For a contractor running one client relationship at a time, that covers a main address, a couple of alternates for testing copy, and room to retire one that has gone stale. The warm-up and authentication checks apply here as they do everywhere, and browser webmail means you can answer a client question without a mail client open.

Studio raises the count to fifteen. That suits a contractor juggling several clients at once, each wanting its own sending identity and its own reply thread. You still supply the rows and their sources. The extra mailboxes let you keep client campaigns from sharing a sending reputation, which matters when one client pauses and another starts.

Floor gives fifty mailboxes. At that size you are running parallel campaigns or handing mailboxes to subcontractors who write on your behalf. The same limits travel with you: no tier supplies recipients, placement is not promised, and anything beyond the mailbox count is priced on its own, so read the published table before committing.

Before you compare mailbox counts, ask what your client is actually buying. They are buying confidence that each row can be traced. A mailbox service supports the outreach that follows, but it cannot produce the trace. If your process for recording sources is weak, no tier fixes it, and the relationship stays at risk.

The second question is whether you need separate identities at all. A contractor sending from one address for one client can work within five mailboxes indefinitely. Splitting campaigns across clients is what pushes you upward. Decide that from your client list, not from a wish to look larger than you are.

The third question concerns the checks. Warm-up and authentication checks help your domain behave predictably, yet they do not promise a place in the inbox. Treat them as groundwork, keep your expectations level, and tell clients what the checks do and do not cover before you send anything on their behalf.

Moving from Starter to Studio buys ten more mailboxes. In practice that is separation: one identity per client, spare addresses for testing subject lines, and somewhere to move a campaign that needs a fresh start. It does not buy more contacts, better data or a stronger guarantee about where messages land, and you should say so plainly when a client asks.

Moving from Studio to Floor buys thirty-five more. That step suits a contractor with subcontractors, each needing their own sign-in and their own reply handling, or one running many client campaigns at once. The jump is about headcount and parallel work, so make the move when the work exists rather than in anticipation of it.

At every step, extra services sit outside the tier and carry their own price. Read the published table on softwareprogrammer.app, match the count to your client list, and keep your own source log beside it. The tiers scale your sending identities; the verification work stays with you.